You Won't Leave Me Behind
by Tr3ble-Maker
Summary: Modern AU: Eponine, Cosette, and Enjolras are the only survivors of the ABC's protest. Despite the fact that discovering everyone's side to the story won't be easy, it's inevitable that they all need each other. Eventual E/E
1. Chapter 1: He's Not Here

The bell on the top of the door rang out. Eponine looked up from the counter curiously. It was the coffee-shop side of the building, which was odd for a number of reasons. One, the coffee-shop side wasn't open until six am (it was 5:46) and two, the bell that sounded was the bell of the front entrance, an entrance that should have been locked right then. Eponine folded down her page in The Great Gatsby (not that she needed to, it was probably the fifth time she'd read the book) and stood up to investigate, but she didn't get far before Cosette marched in, carrying a plastic bag. Of course, Eponine should have guessed that one, considering Cosette was the other owner of the half-book-store-half-coffee-place that they ran downtown.

"Hey," Eponine said, but Cosette stepped right around her, dropped the plastic bag on the counter and paused, staring in at the mysterious contents.

"Newspapers came," she said shortly, and Eponine noticed that her voice was unusually thick and watery. Upon closer inspection, she realized that Cosette's eyes were red-rimmed, and shiny paths down her cheeks marked tears.

"Cosette, what happened?" Eponine whispered, but she barely had time to finish before Cosette ran for the back storeroom, slamming the door behind her. Books in the Paranormal Romance section tipped off the shelves from the sheer force.

Not fully understanding, Eponine fumbled with the knot of the plastic bag that the newspapers were delivered in. It had obviously been ripped open and hastily knotted back. Once the plastic finally unraveled, she picked the one on top and read the headline.

**LAW STUDENTS KILLED AT RALLY AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT**

The paper dropped from her hands, and pages separated from each other as they drifted to the ground. Her hand grabbed the front of the register as if it would bring her friends back from the dead, through the front of the store, chiming the bell for their meeting (technically after-hours).

It was Cosette who had first brought them into the store; a group of boys around their age. They were in law school, and Cosette was particularly close to one named Marius. Eponine had been about to close up when the blonde lead them in, saying something about how they were planning a protest and needed a place to meet. They would never come during the actual hours, they would only be here once a week, blah, blah, blah. All Eponine could think about was what a deep, fathomless blue one of the boy's eyes were, how perfectly his auburn hair hung across them.

Also, how those eyes looked at Cosette in the most adoring way.

Cosette had made it clear to Eponine a few days before she lead them in that she and Marius were not dating. However, Eponine knew her best friend, knew that the way she looked down and giggled slightly meant that she wouldn't reject the idea of not dating him.

And within seconds of meeting him, Eponine thought that she wouldn't refuse him either.

A few others stood out to her; a black-haired one who seemed more attatched to a bottle of wine than to the cause, a bookish one with blonde hair and wire-frame glasses, one with shoulder-length sandy hair and a book of poetry, and the blonde, tall leader of them all. But nobody made that distinct first impression on her like Marius did.

In fact, Eponine thought that she said yes simply so that she could see him again.

That night, she learned most of their names. The drunk was Grantaire, the one with glasses was Combeferre, and the leader was Enjolras. She had tried to give them all drinks for free, but they insisted on paying her, considering that they felt bad about using the place for free. She listened to Enjolras's speeches half the time, and watched Marius out of the corner of her eye the other half.

One night, Cosette had strep throat and couldn't come, so Eponine flew solo. That was the night that Marius asked her if Cosette was seeing anybody.

Also the first night that Eponine had truly felt her heart break.

As the rest of the group, especially Grantaire, started to tease him about his affections (Enjolras, however, thought that it was a distraction from the cause), Eponine mumbled an excuse about leaving the lights on in the Mystery section and ran for the other half of the store, because there was no way that after just two months with these people, they would see her cry.

Somewhere along the way, Eponine and Cosette began to believe in the cause, and contributed to the discussion instead of overseeing everything. After a few meetings, nobody could remember what the group was like without them. (Especially not Marius. He seemed to particularly enjoy Cosette's opinion.)

Five months along, she had been walking through the store, turning off the lights after a meeting. Once she got to the storeroom, however, she realized that the door was cracked open, and there were sounds inside. As she carefully glanced in, her eyes met with the sight of Marius and Cosette softly kissing.

That was the second time Eponine had truly felt her heart break. However, she did not cry.

The next day, Eponine pretended to be shocked and surprised at Cosette's "you'll-never-guess-what-happened-last-night" story. She laughed and shrieked in all the right places, and said that she was so happy for her. Which she was. If there was one thing Eponine cares about, it was Cosette's happiness.

But did it have to involve Marius?

More meetings came and went. Cosette did not bother to be demure anymore. She sat right next to Marius at every meeting, hanging on his every word. Marius showed up at the bookstore on days when there was no meeting planned and asked Eponine where Cosette was. Once, she gave him the wrong location just so that they would not meet, but she had felt so guilty watching him walking around with a lost expression that she hinted at where else Cosette might be. He found her no problem.

More meetings passed, and Enjolras took Eponine and Cosette aside. The protest had a date set, he said, but he didn't want them there. They had been so generous, he said, that the idea of endangering them was terrible, and all of the students agreed with him. Eponine and Cosette had reluctantly obliged.

The night before the rally, they came for one more meeting. Everybody was wishing each other good luck, preparing supplies, and laying out plans.

Marius had taken Eponine aside one night and thanked her for being such a wonderful friend to everybody, including him, and gave her a quick hug. Eponine had bitten her tounge and mumbled her usual "it's no trouble" before going to a member named Courfeyrac to volunteer her help with something, anything.

And then their faces were in the newspaper, under that awful black headline.

The clock buzzed above the door, signaling that it was six. Cosette walked out of the storage room, overly calm. Eponine let go of the counter and pushed her hair over her eyes. They didn't need to say anything. Cosette went to open the door as Eponine scooped up the dropped newspaper, keeping the headline side down. She deposited the untouched papers in the stand near the front, not taking them out of the bag.

Everyone in the town already knows, anyways.

**Welcome to my imagination! I've been wanting to start this for a while, but I've been busy with my Eponine/Marius fic. Review/follow if you like it so far!**


	2. Chapter 2: Aftershocks

The rest of the day was…awful, to say the slightest. Luckily, nobody wanted any of the newspapers, so Eponine and Cosette did not have to look at them at all for the rest of the day. Normally, their small store was full of the sounds of coffee machines and the _Florence + The Machine _CD's that somehow Cosette always managed to turn on at some point during the day (not that anybody minded). But that day, there was no laughter, no music, not even any exchanged words between the friends as Eponine took over for Cosette at checkout when Cosette got their lunch from the sandwich place across the street. Eponine could tell that the regular customers could sense that something was off about the atmosphere; even people who had only come in once or twice before looked slightly confused.

Needless to say, it was a relief when Cosette closed the front doors, clicked the lock, and flipped over the "OPEN" sign. No more plastering fake smiles on when people asked them if they had heard about the TERRIBLE rebellion downtown, and wasn't it just tragic, and didn't the boys in it look about Eponine and Cosette's age?

Eponine quickly grabbed her bag and jacket, desperate to leave work. This was odd; she loved running this store with Cosette, whose father had been kind enough to fund as long as they both focused on their educations. However, it felt stiflingly hot in the room, even with the windows open to the late August air at nine o'clock, letting the cool breeze and the scent of lilacs drift in.

Cosette slowly walked back from the door and got her purse out from under the counter, unable to speak a single word. The silence was so terrible that finally Eponine broke it. "Do you…do you want to come back to my house?"

Cosette tentatively shook her head, sending her blonde waves awry. "Not tonight, I…I have school stuff."

School stuff. Eponine saw right through it. She could tell that even Cosette could see how thinly veiled that one was, but she didn't retract it as she started for the door.

"Are you okay?" Eponine whispered cautiously.

The blonde didn't turn around when she answered. "I'm…yeah, I just…"

And then she was gone.

It was probably even harder for Cosette, Eponine knew, considering that she had been dating Marius. Even though she was sure she loved Marius, there was no denying that he and her best friend had a spark that you didn't see every day. No matter how much it depressed her to admit it, Marius and Cosette could have married one day. Everybody joked about it in public, but they also had that knowing look on their face that made you wonder if it was just a joke or a prediction.

Eponine snapped herself out of the trance. She hastily threw her jacket on and walked out the back door, not caring that her bag hit the stack of newspapers, making them tip over and fan out on the ground behind her.

The walk between her apartment and the store was only two blocks. It must have rained at some point throughout the day, because the pavement shone like silver and the lights lining the river gleamed through the mist that hung in the air. Honestly, Eponine had to stop herself from simply standing on the sidewalk all night, just staring at it all.

After a few minutes of walking and an elevator ride to the tenth floor of the building, she came to the door of her two-bedroom apartment where she and her 13 year old brother Gavroche lived. During their childhood, Eponine's father had been the typical father they show you videos of in a health class: the bitter alcoholic who got mad and beat his children, the kind they say you should tell your guidance counselor about. (Eponine didn't.)

The minute she had a pretty good job (yes, she counted waitressing as a pretty good job) and that apartment, she had showed up at her father's doorstep, walked in without knocking, and announced that she was taking legal custody of Gavroche. Her father, who was seemingly trying to find the answer to the mess that was his life at the bottom of a bottle, has simply waved him towards her. No debate, no questions, no goodbye. Not that Gavroche had wanted anything of the sort; he was all too willing to leave.

Eponine searched her bag for the keys. "Damn it, they're in here somewhere," she muttered to herself. She cursed herself for buying a bag with so many pockets; yeah, it might give you more space, but that also means more opportunity to lose things, and Eponine was the queen of misplacing things in the moment that she needed them most.

Surprisingly, the door swung open to reveal Gavroche. "I heard you outside the door," he explained, stepping back to let her in.

"Thanks, but you know, it could have been a brutal mugger. Then where would you be?" Eponine pointed out.

The medium-sized blonde boy shrugged. "Brutally mugged, I guess."

Eponine threw her bag down on the kitchen counter, and jangling ring of keys fell out. _Nice of you to show up, _Eponine thought. "Did you eat?" she asked Gavroche, turning to the clock that read nine-fifteen.

"No, not yet."

"Did you forget how to use the microwave?"

"I was waiting for you to get home."

Her dark brown hair swung over her shoulder as she looked at him suspiciously. It wasn't like she and her brother didn't eat together often, but if she was running late, he wouldn't hesitate to get dinner without her. Looking closely, she could see a little nervousness in his eyes, like Eponine was a thin glass statue that could shatter at any minute.

_Of course, he heard about it._

Eponine turned back to the refrigerator, avoiding her brother's pitying gaze. "Is soup okay?" she managed to get out.

"Yeah, fine," Gavroche exclaimed too quickly and too enthusiastically.

Five minutes later, they were seated around the small round table in the kitchen with hot bowls of leftover chicken soup. Eponine wasn't up to much conversation, so the room was basically silent. Halfway through, Eponine realized that Gavroche had left the TV on in the corner of the kitchen, and the news channel was droning on and on about some celebrity scandal. Both of the Thenardiers could care less about what went on in those people's personal life, and halfway through the soup she got sick of hearing about whatever drug Lindsay Lohan was on this time.

"Gav, where's the remote? If I listen to this for another minute, I'll have to bash my head in," Eponine finally asked.

Gavroche glanced around the room. "It's somewhere in here, I put it down a while ago…"

The newscaster onscreen shuffled her papers. She had bleached blonde hair with brown roots showing through and a smear of red lipstick on her front tooth. "New footage just in of the terrible protest that happened downtown just a few days ago…"

Eponine could hear Gavroche scrambling faster for the remote. The words of the woman hit her like a solid blow to her stomach. She wanted more than anything to look away, to run, but somehow she was rooted to her chair. No matter how much her head spun, the words on the screen remained clear: **PROTEST OUTSIDE GOVERNMENT BUILDING**.

But there was no way she could prepare herself for the footage.

The newscaster's voice was still there, but it had quieted in Eponine's ears. Bouncy camera footage rollicking side to side showed the police, armed, trying to fight down the group of rioting students. There were so many more than had ever been in the meetings at the store, so many faces that Eponine had never seen before.

Faces that were dropping to the pavement one by one…

"Gavroche…" Eponine stammered.

More frantic scrambling from the countertops.

She caught a glimpse of a face half-obscured by curly black hair that could only be Courfeyrac, whose eyes stared up, wide and unblinking at the heavens, still as stone. His laugh suddenly rang in her ears, and she remembered how much joy she could hear behind it when it rang out during the meetings.

"Gavroche…the remote…" Eponine managed, a little louder.

The newscaster's voice came back into her ears. "The wild students practically attacked the police squad sent to stop them…"

The film did not match the words. The police advanced on the boys, who scattered in all directions, running towards anything that looked like a sanctuary only to be faced with bullets.

The camera suddenly turned directly onto a familiar face.

"Gavroche!" Eponine yelled, practically hyperventilating. Tears were running down her face, but she hardly noticed.

Marius didn't have time to turn around before the bullet went through him.

"GAVROCHE TURN IT OFF!" Eponine screamed, suddenly bolting up and leaping for the television set. She felt her elbow collide with her soup, and it splattered everywhere in the same way blood did. Gavroche's pleading with her grew to a muffled roar deep in her ears as Eponine grabbed at the cords behind the television, testing every one. Eventually she found the plug and ripped it out, and the image of Marius Pontmercy's dead body was sucked back into the black hole.

Eponine breathed heavily in and out. Gavroche was scared stiff across the kitchen, watching her carefully.

Finally, she found the ability to talk. "I, um, I think I'm going to go to bed," she whispered, her voice thick and watery.

"'Ponine…" Gavroche started carefully.

"Can you just clean the soup up?" she stuttered.

Without waiting for Gavroche to nod, she quickly walked out of the room. Once she was out of sight, she broke into a run, entering her room and throwing herself down on the bed. Muffled by her pillow, she finally let out the scream that had been building since she and Cosette had heard the outcome of the protest.

"They KILLED them!" she shrieked into her pillow, her ribs shuddering.

She didn't care if her father beat her for a year straight, or if Marius and Cosette made out right in front of her, or if she herself had to organize a group and take to the streets. If it was in her power, Eponine would have done anything in that moment to bring them back to life.

**Sorry if this is tearing out your heart, I know it's tearing out mine and I'm the one writing it. Review/Follow/Favorite if you liked it!**


	3. Chapter 3: How Could I Ever Forget

The funeral invitations came the next day,

It was left out on the table for Eponine when she got home for her lunch break at one o'clock, but Gavroche was nowhere to be found. She didn't worry too much about it; Gav had always been a person who liked to be roaming around outdoors much more than sitting still in one room, especially on a Saturday. As long as he came back while it was still light out, Eponine was fine with it. ("Absolutely NO walking alone at dark" were the first words that she had ever said to him when he moved in.)

Curiously, she picked up the solemn beige envelope and popped it open with the edge of her fingernail, reading the dark grey inscriptions. All of them were sharing a funeral; she could see that from the sheer amount of names on the envelope. It suddenly occurred to her that she had not had a hand in these invitations, and she was 99% sure Cosette hadn't either, simply from the color choices (no matter how sad it was, Cosette would never choose beige for any occasion). She had never thought about the boys having families, or siblings, or things to do outside their meetings. A chip fell from her heart when she realized that somebody used to cradle these boys, kiss them when they cried…

Eponine only read enough to know that it was, in fact, the funeral and when it would take place. _No crying, _she told herself firmly as the tears pressed against her eyes. After a minute of excessively loud breathing, she managed to keep any emotions under control. Cosette was already shaken enough, and Eponine knew that if she walked in looking like she had been crying, she would only make it worse.

_What did I come here for again? _She thought, her eyes darting around. Her eyes landed on an empty bag of chips poking out of the trash. _Right, lunch. _She wasn't nearly as hungry anymore, but she grabbed a granola bar and threw it in her bag just in case she changed her mind later.

A minute later, when she walked out of the door of the apartment building, Eponine nearly barreled into a man leaning nonchalantly against the façade.

_Shit._

"Hey, 'Ponine," whispered Montparnasse, getting far too close for her liking. His hand seemed to be wandering to places Eponine didn't want them to wander, thank you very much, and she quickly pushed it away.

"Don't call me that," she snapped, picking up her pace. However, Montparnasse was never one to take no for an answer, and he fell into step alongside her. Eponine thought about going the other way, but the store was waiting and she had told Cosette she would only be gone for twenty minutes.

Montparnasse lazily grinned and ran his fingers through his black-brown hair. Despite the fact that Eponine despised him, he was admittedly good-looking. Hazel eyes with flecks of gold, pale skin, slightly flushed lips…but Eponine hardly cared anymore. "Why not? 'Ponine's a nice name."

"Call me Eponine. Or even better, don't talk to me at all," she replied, trying to walk faster. She was already walking as fast as she could without running, though, and her legs were starting to cramp.

"Why do you hate me so much?" he whined in a low voice. She might have given an honest answer, but the half smirk he wore showed her that he couldn't care less and probably thought that she was trying to challenge him.

"Because you're a pain in the ass," Eponine said matter-of-factly, shoving yet another hand away from her waist.

"You liked me once," he pointed out, not seeming nostalgic in the least.

Eponine slowed down slightly, because she couldn't argue that. She HAD liked him once, when she was younger. It was when she was still living with her father, and she had clung to the tiniest shreds of happiness in her life. Well, Montparnasse had provided a more than a few of those shreds for a while, convincing Eponine that he would love her forever and always be at her side. But then there was fighting, both physical and verbal, until one day Montparnasse had tried to force her into bed. She fought her way to the phone and began to dial the police, and that was when he ran out and wasn't seen again for several days. When he finally turned up, Montparnasse got strangely close to her father and his friends, the very men Eponine had cried to him about once, finally admitting her fears. At that moment, she knew that they would always be hostile enemies.

She snapped out of the trance. "That was then, this is now, and NOW," she rested her hand on the bookstore's door, "you can leave me alone."

Montparnasse had never gone into the store, and it seemed like he wasn't changing that anytime soon. He adjusted the sleeves of his tight-fitting, long sleeved black shirt (it was getting pretty cold outside, considering that it was only the end of August) and left without a goodbye. Not that Eponine would give him one.

Cosette looked up from The Fault in Our Stars as Eponine walked in. "Was that Montparnasse?"

"The son of a bitch in the flesh," Eponine retorted, tossing her bag into the corner behind the cashier.

Cosette quickly pointed at a seven year old boy rather close to the desk and put a finger on her lips.

"Sorry, it was the _not so nice person,_" she said, emphasizing the last words with enough volume to make the boy look over. Cosette kicked her behind the counter as Eponine flashed a sarcastic smile at the boy, who ran off in search of his parent.

"And now you're scaring children," Cosette sighed, closing her book and sliding it to the side. The small smile slowly disappeared from her pale face and she became very interested with the details of the flooring. "Did you, um, get the invitation?"

Eponine froze. "Yeah."

"And you're going to go?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Then…yeah." Eponine said quickly.

Silence hung in the air, tangible. It was only broken by the boy and his father beginning to walk towards the cash register.

"So, I'll meet you there, then," Cosette murmured.

Eponine nodded, and then made an excuse about restocking the magazine shelves as Cosette turned to help the customers.

The deaths were like foreign, uncharted territory, an ocean in between Cosette and Eponine that threw a wrench into their usually inseparable friendship. Eponine knew she was bad at comforting people, and that was what Cosette needed most. She threw down a copy of National Geographic in frustration. She couldn't tell whether she wanted to talk or if she wanted to just bottle everything up until it slowly faded away.

She picked the magazine up off the floor and tried to smooth it out, but she had created a huge crease right through the picture of a tiger on the cover. _Whatever, nobody buys them anyways, _she decided, hiding the animal's angry eyes behind the first copy in the row. Maybe it would straighten itself out with the extra weight on top of it.

The store closed earlier on Fridays, so Cosette closed the front doors four hours ahead of the usual time. Eponine felt the need to say something. Normally they made lattes in the coffee-shop half of the store on early closings. (Although theirs were not nearly as good as Musichetta's, the intern they hired a few years back that was now a regular employee.) Cosette didn't look like she was in a latte mood, though.

_No, no conversation for now, _Eponine decided, wandering out the back door to be greeted by an angry downpour. "When did that start?" she wondered out loud, standing under the awning of the store and pulling her bag tightly closed to protect its contents. It had been cloudy earlier, but cool, and nowhere near the looks of a rainstorm. Of course, that was why she had left her jacket at home.

She sighed, looking up at the sky. "Screw it." She splashed through the deep puddles already forming along the sidewalk, switching between running and quickly walking. Unlike the rain the night before, which had been light and pretty, this rain made loud cracking sounds against the pavement and blinded her if she so much as looked up. Luckily, she knew the path by heart and navigated the streets easily. It helped, of course, to not have any other people walking in the opposite direction, forming obstacles for her to swerve around.

Despite how quickly she moved, by the time she reached the apartment building, her clothes were soaked and her hair dripped. In the elevator up, she tried to wring out her hair onto the maroon tile floor, but stopped when she realized just how much water came out.

She burst in the door to Gavroche sitting at the table, pretending to read a textbook. Eponine could tell he wasn't because his eyes were going back and forth too quickly, and he did little gestures like nodding his head and hmm-ing under his breath as if they made him look like an insightful philosopher.

"What's it about?" Eponine asked, gesturing at the textbook.

"The French Revolution," Gavroche groaned, rolling his eyes and theatrically sinking back into his chair. "A guy named Louis and his wife pissed a ton of people off and then they went on a killing spree. The end."

Eponine visibly flinched on the words "killing spree", and Gavroche noticed, immediately cutting himself off.

"So…you got caught in the rain?" Gavroche finally said, gesturing at Eponine's dark blue shirt that was so polka-dotted with raindrops that it was almost a different color entirely.

"Yeah. I'm going to go change and dry off," Eponine decided, looking down at herself. She hung her bag on the edge of the nearest chair and walked into her room, kicking off her battered leather boots as she went through the small hallway.

Peeling the wet, long sleeved blue shirt away from her skin, she looked into her closet. She had never wanted to waste money on clothes; years of starving while her dad blew everything on alcohol made her extremely cautious with money. Unless a piece of clothing barely fit her or was falling apart at the seams, she never got rid of her clothes because they were "last season". Cosette loved the mall with all its floral fabrics and crisp denim, but Eponine strolled by clothing stores without as much as a glance in the windows.

She grabbed the first thing her eyes landed on – a forest green top that was almost exactly like the blue one, but had a round neck instead of a V – and yanked it over her head. Next, she went into the bathroom and toweled off her unruly brown hair, running a brush through it. By now it was half dry, half wet, and it looked flat in some places and too puffy in others. Agitated, she pulled it into a side ponytail.

She had only just gone back to the kitchen when the doorbell rang. Gavroche started for it, but Eponine held him back. "I've got it." Gav shrugged and walked off to his room.

She opened the door to Cosette, who was equally as wet as Eponine had been minutes before, but at least she had had the good sense to take a hoodie with her today. Her hair and most of her shirt was fine. Eponine smiled. "Hey, what are you –"

She stopped short as she realized who was behind Cosette, her mouth hanging in a half open position.

Enjolras.


	4. Chapter 4: Sing Of What's Lost to You

_Enjolras is alive he's standing here he's breathing he's actually alive he's not even hurt oh my God Enjolras is alive, _Eponine thought all at once. Realizing that her mouth was still hanging open, she snapped it closed and tried to look indifferent.

"Can we come in?" Cosette asked, and the higher pitch in her voice told Eponine that she was just as shocked to see him.

"Sure…I mean…I…" Eponine stopped herself and stepped out of the doorframe, allowing them to pass through. Cosette had been to Eponine's countless times, and she went on autopilot, hanging her jacket on the hooks by the door and striding into the living room. Eponine watched as Enjolras slowly followed, making short eye contact with her as he passed. She walked in behind him, sitting on the couch that Cosette had already claimed one side of, leaving Enjolras to the secondhand armchair across the small room.

Cosette shifted, leaning forward from the back of the couch. "Um, Enjolras and I ran into each other downtown and I suggested we come over," she explained in the same high-pitched voice. "I hope it's not a bad time."

Now she was being oddly formal. Eponine knew very well that while Cosette was one of the kindest people she had ever met, some of that kindness dropped away while she was with Eponine. She wouldn't be unfriendly, not at all, but she would be much more relaxed than how she was acting now. Also, she wouldn't have asked to come into the apartment; she normally just walked in when Eponine stepped aside.

"No, the timing's…fine. Let me just go tell Gav," Eponine stuttered.

"Who's Gav?" Enjolras asked. Eponine whirled back around. She had forgotten he was there for a second. _Oh, and he can still speak too. Alive AND speaking._

Eponine replied, "Gavroche," at the same time Cosette said, "Her brother."

Enjolras nodded and looked back at the ground.

Eponine turned into the hallway, her mind racing. She could tell that Cosette had only brought him here because she was as confused as Eponine, but what were they supposed to say? _Sorry that you kind of lead your friends to their deaths and now you're the only one left, but hey, at least you've got two nineteen-year-old girls who are just as broken up as you are and therefore are no help?_

She burst into Gav's room without knocking. "Enjolras is here," she stage-whispered. Then, as an afterthought, "and Cosette."

Gav looked up. "Enjolras, the guy who lead the…"

Eponine nodded, not wanting him to finish. She had talked a little bit about the meetings to her brother, enough so he knew most of their names. "So try not to make too much noise. And only come out of your room if there's fire or blood."

"Thanks," he said sarcastically, but he obligingly turned down the radio station he was playing from the clock radio.

Taking a deep breath, Eponine walked back into the living room, where it appeared that Cosette and Enjolras had not spoken since she left. "Does anyone, um, want anything to drink? I can make tea or something," she offered, a lame attempt at breaking the silence.

Enjolras stood up from the chair. "That would be great, thanks. But can I get a towel or something? It was raining pretty hard."

_Wow, cohesive sentences. We're getting somewhere with the whole talking thing. _Eponine pointed to the left of the hall. "In the bathroom," she said shortly.

He nodded and waited until she got out of the entrance to walk away.

Immediately, Eponine grabbed Cosette by the wrist and dragged her into the kitchen at the speed of light. "What?" she whisper-screeched.

Cosette finally let her shock show through. "I know!"

"Where did you see him?" Eponine asked, starting to pour water into the kettle. She had promised tea, after all.

Cosette leaned against the counter like it was all too much. "Okay, so I left the store like ten minutes after you, and you know the CVS on the corner?" Eponine nodded. "Right, so I was passing by there, and he came out of the door as soon as I rounded the corner and I literally crashed into him, or maybe he crashed into me? I don't know, anyways, so his bag fell and kind of went everywhere, but it was just some Ibuprofen and a copy of the newspaper, and he was holding a book too but WHATEVER. Anyways, so obviously I'm standing there trying to string words together, and it was really awkward, so I kind of said 'Hey, let's go to Eponine's!' out of nowhere because I didn't know what to say and I hope that's okay!"

"Okay, first, you need to breathe," Eponine stated, holding up a hand in a 'stop' gesture. Cosette took a few gulps of air as Eponine put green tea bags in three mugs. "Second, it's fine that he's here, but what are we supposed to say? We obviously can't talk about…"

"I know we can't," Cosette said, cutting her off before she could finish.

Before the awkward silences could come back, Eponine rambled on, impatiently watching the kettle. "Is he planning on staying here for a few hours? I mean, he can, you both can, but I'd like to know because of…"

But then she heard the bathroom door open and shut and knew that Enjolras was back within hearing range. She brought a finger to her lips to signal that Cosette shouldn't talk anymore.

"Hello?" Enjolras called.

Cosette pointed at Eponine, with a clear 'you answer' expression.

Eponine coughed. "In the kitchen," she called.

In a few seconds, Enjolras appeared in the doorway, still holding the towel. "Do you want me to put this in the laundry, or…?"

Eponine awkwardly took it, accidentally brushing his hand. She pulled away a little too quickly. "Um, no, I'll take care of it later," she decided.

She stood there with the towel for a millisecond before turning around and putting it on the counter. The steam started spouting out of the kettle, and Eponine, grateful for the distraction, took it and poured the water in, distributing the mugs.

"So…" Cosette started. "How are things?"

"They've been better," Enjolras replied quietly.

Cosette looked like she wanted to hit herself in the head a few times. Even Eponine winced in her mind. _Of course 'things' would not be okay._

Enjolras cleared his throat. "You, uh, never mentioned you had a brother. To me, at least."

Eponine gratefully took the conversation starter. "Yeah, Gavroche. He's thirteen. Eighth grade."

"And he lives with you?" Eponine could detect the undertone of _where are your parents?_

"My dad's not exactly what you'd call fit for raising children," Eponine explained. "Well, he was until he realized why love people when there's alcohol?" she added dryly.

"Oh. Sorry," Enjolras said, looking down into his tea. The story hardly affected Cosette, though. She had heard the full version a few times and was totally used to the idea.

"Don't be," Eponine reassured. Then she realized that this was more words than the two of them had ever exchanged at one time and backed off a little bit. Enjolras seemed to do the same.

The sound of a wind chime ringtone rang out from Cosette's pocket, and she pulled out her phone to hit the green "Accept Call" button. "Hello? Hi, Dad. No, I'm just at Eponine's. Really? Why? No, I get it. Okay. Bye."

She hung up and turned to Eponine apologetically. "My uncle's coming over and my dad wants me to be there. Should I…"

Eponine glanced cautiously over Cosette's shoulder at Enjolras, who was suddenly very interested in the walls of the kitchen. "No, it's fine, go ahead."

Cosette raised her eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Eponine lied.

Cosette drained the rest of her tea and put the mug in the sink. "Well, see you later then, Ep." She turned to the side. "Enjolras."

The door clicked shut behind her and Eponine and Enjolras were alone. They looked around the room for a while, drinking tea. Eponine finally allowed herself to look at him. His ice-blue eyes had dark circles around them like he hadn't slept in a week, and his blonde hair was slightly messed up from the rain. For a split second, she wondered if he was still going to the law classes that somebody, probably Bahorel, had mentioned to her once, just because he looked slightly more professional today than she remembered him. Normally, he wore a random shirt with jeans, but today he was wearing an ivory button-down with khakis, which were both splattered by the rain.

_Nope, no more silence, _Eponine decided. _Someone has to say it. _"You're alive," she stated.

Enjolras nodded like he was expecting the question. "Barely."

"So…you're going to the funeral, then," Eponine added.

He nodded, exhaling loudly.

"I guess we'll see you there. Me and Cosette, that is. I mean, Cosette and I." _Nice, Eponine, grammatically correct yourself. Quit being so nervous. The rebellion happened, people have to mention it at some point. It shouldn't be like this._

Enjolras nodded, and it looked like it took him some effort to swallow.

Eponine decided to see if she could improve her comforting-people skills. "Enjolras, I'm really sorry about everybody and –"

"I have to go," he suddenly jumped in, putting his half-empty mug of tea down on the counter and starting for the door.

"Oh, okay," Eponine said more quietly.

Even Enjolras must have sensed that he was being harsh, because he turned halfway around in the doorframe. "Thanks for the tea."

The door slammed shut before Eponine could even say 'you're welcome.'

**Review if you liked it! Next chapter is the funeral, so if you don't want me to rip your heart out then I suggest you stop now.**


	5. Chapter 5: Still There in Your Soul

Eponine owned two dresses. One was black and came to her knees with cap sleeves and a slightly flared skirt, and the other was burgundy and sleeveless with miniscule pleats near the neckline. After deliberating for a minute, she put the burgundy one back in the closet and pulled the black one off its hanger.

Cosette was picking her up at six pm, after she left the sign on the book store door saying that they would be closed for the rest of the day. Earlier, Eponine had contemplated coming back to the store, just because skipping Saturdays can hurt business, but then she thought of just what kind of mood that day held. Gavroche was probably downtown, where he normally was on Saturday mornings. He had offered to go to the funeral with Eponine and Cosette, but he had only met the boys on slight acquaintance. They had liked him right off the bat, of course, but Eponine had insisted that he not come.

Once the black dress was on and her hair was brushed out over her shoulders, Eponine took a quick up-and-down look at herself in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth. She couldn't tell whether you should get dressed up for a funeral to show respect, or to look normal because you're too sad to put in the effort.

This morning, she had been all for stapling the sheets down to the bed if it meant that she didn't have to go to the church and explain exactly how she knew all of the boys. She didn't want to see their parents mourning, or their siblings hanging their heads, or Enjolras. Especially not Enjolras. It wasn't that she hated him, or even that last night had been terribly awkward. She felt like compared to Enjolras's long-lasting friendships with all of the members, her appearance at their funeral was out of place.

_Then again, _she thought, _why would I have gotten an invitation if I didn't belong there? _ So she smoothed a crease in the dress and walked straight to the door, not bothering to eat anything. She felt like there was a tightly-coiled ball of yarn in her stomach that seemed to get pulled taunt every time another minute passed.

Cosette was already parked outside the apartment building. Her dress was similar to Eponine's, but it was made of charcoal gray fabric with a layer of lace over everything. Eponine was suddenly wary of the fact that Cosette belonged at the funeral. She had been dating Marius, she had lead them into their store, she had stayed with him the night before the rebellion. Eponine had simply stood to the side watching it all, and realizing it made her sick to her stomach.

"Are you okay?" Cosette asked quietly, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "You look pale."

"Fine," Eponine assured her, pressing a fist into her ribcage.

The church was right down the street, and it only took a silent five minutes to get to the parking lot. Cosette didn't get out immediately. Instead, she exhaled loudly, looking into the rearview mirror, biting her lip. It occurred to Eponine that Cosette might feel like she shouldn't be here either, but then the uncertainty vanished from her eyes and she quickly got out of the car.

Eponine scrambled to follow, and sure enough, she didn't know anybody there. There were other boys their age that were probably their friends, and middle-aged people that were probably relatives, and short children that were probably more relatives, but there was no one that Eponine had ever met.

Cosette walked up to a somber-looking woman with auburn hair and struck up a conversation. The man beside her turned as well, and immediately Eponine fused their faces together in her mind.

Marius's parents.

_Holy shit, _Eponine thought, stumbling a little as she started fast walking to the church doors before Cosette could introduce her. Not only was she totally unprepared to talk to them (_Hi, yes, I'm the one who was in love with your son while he dated my friend here and, well, look where we are now), _but seeing them here, outside the church, basically confirmed that this was not a dream. This was cold, hard reality, and Eponine was never going to wake up.

With her head down in all the confusion, Eponine walked directly into somebody. Feeling the red hot embarrassment on her cheeks, she began to spew apologies. "I'm SO sorry, I didn't see-"

She raised her eyes up enough to meet the same blue eyes that had been in her kitchen last night.

"Enjolras," she sputtered at the same time he said, "Oh, hi."

"Hi," Eponine replied. _It couldn't have just been a stranger._

"You came," he said. It was short and clipped, and Eponine could tell that he wanted to bolt out the door too.

"Well, I said that I might," she reminded him. _Might? You MIGHT come to the funeral of his best friends? You MIGHT?_ She scolded herself in her head.

Enjolras nodded. "Are you going to the reception afterwards?"

"Probably," Eponine admitted. Truth is, reception was another word for party, and a party was the last thing Eponine wanted to attend. It made the event seem like a celebration, like a good thing, which was the farthest possible distance from the truth.

"Me too. Probably, I mean," Enjolras agreed.

People started filing into the church as he said this, milling around, taking their seats. A man in a black suit shuffled papers at the front of the room and cleared his throat, which signaled that it was time to start. Enjolras gave a little half nod to Eponine as he walked to the left set of seats. Eponine gave a small wave to him as she scanned the crowd for Cosette, who was seated alone towards the back in the right half of pews. She fast walked over and slid in.

Eponine had expected there to be words to begin it all, but there weren't any. She heard a creak come from the back of the church, and she turned her head to see the first coffin rolling in.

_Oh my God._

She hadn't expected to cry that quickly. Normally she was the strongest one, the one who buried her feelings deep inside of her and only showed them to the people she knew she trusted. But seeing the mahogany boxes roll out one by one made all of the layers she had built up fall away, and knowing that in those boxes laid her friends, people who were practically her family, and the one she loved made the tears come. She looked around, noticing that she was not the only one. Cosette had started almost exactly when she had, and other people were busying themselves with tissues. Children who couldn't quite grasp the concept yet were staring straight ahead, afraid to move a single muscle.

"We are gathered here today…" the man in the suit began.

Eponine didn't listen to him. She should have, really, but she couldn't tear her eyes off the polished wood, the silk drapings of white, the fact that they lay inside of them, not quite sleeping but definitely not awake.

The entire ceremony blurred. Words filled her ears and poured out in milliseconds. She barely caught the individual phrases, but somehow grasped everything they tried to say. The man had obviously never met them; not once did he mention what they fought for, or anything about them besides the classic characteristics people give to the dead: kind, loving, delightful, etc.

Eponine looked at Cosette once, and Cosette looked back. Everything they had avoided talking about could be put into exact wording in that one gaze, and Eponine realized that she did not have to tiptoe around the subject anymore. It happened. Cosette knew. She knew.

Eponine did not look at Enjolras once.

When it was over, Eponine had barely wiped under her eyes before Cosette ran past her and out the door, weaving around groups of people as she went. Surprised, Eponine tried to follow Cosette's path through the crowd at a slower pace, throwing out "excuse me-s" and "sorry-s" left and right to whoever she made contact with.

She burst outside just in time to see Cosette's car door slam shut. There were less people outside than there were inside, so making a beeline for the car was much faster. She carefully clicked open the passenger door and slid inside the car.

Cosette was crying like Eponine had never seen her before. There was a small rim of mascara under each of her eyes, and her body shook like it was an effort to even take in oxygen. Seeing her like that refreshed Eponine's tears, and she leaned across the gear shift and embraced the fragile blonde, making her shuddery breaths seem even more profound.

"I love him, Eponine. I love him," Cosette gulped, her voice muddled by Eponine's shoulder.

It was a selfish reason, but Eponine's heart sank even more than it had in the ceremony.

Eponine had told Cosette that they shouldn't go to the reception, that it was understandable if she just wanted to be alone. But Cosette insisted, saying that she had already told Marius's parents that she would come and it would look disrespectful if she didn't.

"Only for an hour," Cosette decided as they pulled up into the curb of somebody's street. People were having drinks in the backyard, and there was a small table with what looked like cheese and crackers and other smaller foods.

"If you want to stay longer, I can walk home. The apartment is just a few blocks away," Eponine offered.

"No, only an hour. Unless you want to stay longer," Cosette added.

Eponine shook her head. She most certainly did not.

A girl that looked about sixteen greeted them near the deck in the back and passed them both plastic cups of wine. Eponine tended to steer clear of any alcohol whatsoever, after seeing how it had torn apart her father's life and most of her own, but it would be rude to turn it away, so she carefully accepted the cup and took a small, sour sip.

After making some small talk with the girl, (who turned out to be Bossuet's sister, and was handling the situation remarkably well considering the circumstances), Eponine and Cosette just stood in the center of everything and made polite conversation with whoever came up to them. They, however, did not approach anybody.

After about twenty minutes, Eponine started to feel like there were hands closing around her throat, suffocating her. "I think I'm going to go take a walk," she said to Cosette, gesturing at the woods bordering the backyard.

"Okay. Are you sure you don't want to leave? I can drive you home and come back."

"No, I just need some untouched air," Eponine lied. In reality, she wanted nothing more than to leave, and since Cosette had said an hour, she could easily just stand in the trees for forty minutes.

Once she was a few feet deep in the trees, she poured the wine, which was untouched except for that one sip, over the roots of a tree. For a minute she debated leaving the plastic cup there too, but decided against littering and kept walking.

The woods still had the fresh, light smell of rain on the earth from the night before. Eponine took deep breaths, looking at the light from the crescent moon filtering through the trees. The babble of noise from the backyard followed her, but it was much quieter and actually made the air seem sweeter.

The ear-splitting crack of a twig sounded in front of her. "Oh my GOD!" she screamed without thinking, and the figure in front of her made a noise of surprise as well. She squinted in the darkness, but a shaft of moonlight fell on his face and she dropped the defensive, ready-to-run pose she was in.

"Enjolras?"

"Eponine," he said quietly. He immediately dropped his gaze from hers, toeing the earth. "Sorry, I was just going back."

He immediately tried to move past her, and without thinking, Eponine grabbed his arm to stop him. This threw him slightly off balance, and she caught sight of his face as he turned to see what had stopped her. Red-rimmed eyes, trails of water running down his face…

Slightly forcefully, he freed his arm from her grasp and walked back out towards the party. Eponine watched him walk all the way through, out to his car, get in, and drive away immediately.

Had he been crying?

**Things get slightly less depressing after this chapter. I'm posting this without going over it a second time because I've been in tech week for a show and haven't been able to post, so sorry if there are any weird errors. Review if you liked it!**


	6. Chapter 6: He's Immortal, Forever Alive

Sundays were normally good days. The bookstore was only open in the afternoon, Eponine ordered Chinese for dinner, and she and Gavroche would watch whatever they had in the DVR from that week. Unlike most parents (or technically guardians in Eponine's case), she had no problems with Gavroche watching gory cop shows or dramas. In fact, she liked Hannibal as much as the next person, and could debate for hours about whether Burn Notice or Graceland was better. (Graceland always won.)

But that Sunday proved to be different. The minute Eponine woke up, she had a feeling like somebody had filled her chest with lead. She couldn't pinpoint why until the previous night's memories flooded back to her all at once, and then she laid her head back down on her pillow, to emotionally exhausted from the events of the week to cry any more.

After showering and leaving her hair to air-dry, she pulled on the first shorts and shirt she grabbed, her mind somewhat fogged over. The same images kept rolling through her head on repeat: mahogany coffins, cranberry wine splashing against the tree roots, Enjolras pushing past her to leave. Enjolras – was he okay?

_Forget it, Enjolras can take care of himself, _she decided, squeezing a pea-sized drop of toothpaste on her toothbrush.

When she finished getting ready, she dragged herself into the kitchen, past Gavroche shaking cereal into a bowl. "You look tired," he remarked, glancing up for a split second.

Come to think of it, Eponine did feel a little tired. Maybe that was what was wrong with her. "Yeah, I guess," she shrugged. She glanced at the clock – already nine-fourteen. Well, there was no time to go back to bed; the store opened at ten.

Gavroche seemed to read her mind. "Why don't you just call and ask Cosette to cover for you?" he suggested.

Eponine waved it away. "She was out even later than I was."

She started to walk out of the kitchen when Gavroche spoke. "Right, the funeral. How was it?"

Eponine paused, looking at the blank wall. "Good."

The door shut before Gavroche could respond to that.

Once she got out on the street and finally felt free of any unwanted conversation, she exhaled in relief. However, the exhale didn't get very far before somebody fell right into step beside her and started to twirl a strand of her wet hair.

She swatted the hand away. "Fuck off, Montparnasse."

He smiled like it was the exact reaction he had been searching for. "Saw you at the protestor's funeral last night," he said conversationally.

Eponine turned to him, stopping right before the post with the "Push to Cross" button. "Are you _stalking _me now?"

"I prefer to call it observing from a distance," Montparnasse said teasingly, but Eponine was less than amused.

"You're a creep." She finally decided. He only responded by starting to finger her hair again, and she snapped her head to the side to avoid his touch. "Definitely a creep," she repeated, and punched the button.

"Why were you there?" he said. From anyone else, it might actually be a caring question, but from Montparnasse, Eponine knew all too well that he only wanted to get a rise out of her.

The seconds started ticking down on the time-to-cross sign, and Eponine strolled across the street, knowing very well that Montparnasse was following. "Stay out of my business," she growled, reaching the sidewalk.

Suddenly, Montparnasse grabbed her hips and pulled her close to him. Eponine saw what was happening in the nick of time and whipped her head to the side, making his lips land on her lower cheek. She regained control of her hands and pushed him in the chest. "What the _hell,_ Montparnasse?"

"Hey!" shouted a voice from behind Eponine. "Get off of her!"

Montparnasse let go of Eponine for long enough for her to turn around and see Enjolras striding towards them.

"What business of it is yours?" Montparnasse said, but Eponine could sense the miniscule drop of fear in his voice.

"I could be wrong, but I don't think she wants you trying to kiss her," Enjolras replied, slightly sarcastically.

"Who are you, then?" Montparnasse came back.

"What do you mean?"

"You her boyfriend or something?" Eponine couldn't hear any jealousy in his voice.

"I hope that I'm at least a lot nicer to her than you're being right now. Now if you don't mind leaving…?" Enjolras asked. Eponine merely stood between them, wide-eyed. She had never seen Enjolras hold any passion for anything besides the protest, and yet here he was, actually staring down Montparnasse in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Just pull the stick out of your ass, man," Montparnasse said gruffly, turning on his heel and leaving before Enjolras could respond.

Eponine winced. "Sorry you had to witness that."

Enjolras was busy staring after him, though. "Who was that?"

Eponine shrugged her bag back onto her shoulder. "My ex-boyfriend. Dodged a bullet there, literally and metaphorically." She laughed, then realizing what she said. "I mean, he never-he never had a gun-"

Enjolras couldn't seem to hear her, which was a relief. "What's his name?"

"Montparnasse, why?"

"Just for future reference," Enjolras replied casually.

Eponine gave a tight-lipped smile and looked around. People walked by them with their coffees and jackets, oblivious to the action that had just taken place.

"So," Eponine finally said, "where are you going?"

Enjolras lifted up his messenger bag. "I only have one class today, and I figured I'd walk there with the extra time."

Eponine nodded and looked at the bag. She suddenly noticed that every man she had ever seen with a messenger bag either looked like they were trying too hard to be a hipster or just like a dork, but it seemed to fit Enjolras in a way. The corner of a pieced of white lined paper sticking out of the top, all of the zippers zipped and the buckles clasped…it seemed like he was meant to carry it.

He jerked her out of her daze by returning the question. "Anyways, where are you going?"

"Just to the store," Eponine explained.

"Haven't been there in a while," Enjolras said quietly, and Eponine wasn't sure if he was talking to her or himself. Then he lifted his head a little. "Well, I'm headed in that direction, so…mind if I walk with you?"

Eponine's throat caught. She had never really had more than a few minutes of conversation with him at one time in her life, but then again, there's a first time for everything. "Sure."

She started off in the direction of her store, her bag bumping into Enjolras's arm. "So, what class are you taking?" she asked, trying to put another inch in between them so that her bag wouldn't keep hitting him.

"Oh, it's Government. It's an interesting class, but the professor's really boring." He explained.

"Why government?" Eponine asked.

"Why government?" he repeated. "So many of our nation's issues continue to be underrepresented that the only way to fix it is to change it ourselves, which can only be done by…"

Honestly, Eponine did not have a large area of interest in the logistics of a college class, but even more honestly, she liked watching Enjolras talk. She had watched plenty of his speeches at the meetings, and there was no debating that he genuinely believed in what he was talking about. His eyes glazed over with a fiery passion that she had not seen in anyone else before, and everybody in the room paid rapt attention to what was saying. Even Grantaire, who never paid attention to anything except a bottle of wine, lifted his head from the table to listen (only to let it roll back down the minute it ended). Cosette stopped gazing at Marius (and vice versa, for that matter). Thinking about those meetings made Eponine realize just how much she had taken those meetings for granted, and her heart ached for a split second until she remembered that Enjolras was still here, so there were still pieces of those nights alive within him.

He stopped talking at the door of the bookstore, looking up at the sign of the store. "Why did you decide to call the store Café Musain?"

Eponine looked up at the green and gold sign. "Cosette's father suggested it. Something about a place in Paris when he lived there, like, ten years ago."

Enjolras made a "hm" sound under his breath and looked at his watch. "Well, I have about an hour before I actually have to be at class, and there IS a book I've been looking for…"

Eponine said, "Do you want to come in?" at the same time Enjolras said "Can I go in?"

They both stopped talking, waiting for the other to finish. When nobody started, Eponine nodded. "Yeah, I mean…it _is_ a store, so…"

"Right," Enjolras said.

They both reached for the handle at the same time, and both of their hands landed on it simultaneously. Not sure what to do, Eponine accidentally let her hand linger, and Enjolras seemed to do the same. Suddenly flustered, she tightened her grasp on the door and gently pulled it open as he lifted his hand away.

Eponine went in ahead of Enjolras, throwing her bag behind the counter that Cosette was already seated at. Her blonde waves fell back as she looked up. "Enjolras, hi."

"Hello." Then, as if he needed to explain why he was there, "I need a book for one of my classes, and I was hoping Eponine could help me look."

Cosette nodded silently, and Eponine could immediately tell that her mind was still hazed in depression from the funeral. Maybe, between Montparnasse and Enjolras, Eponine had been able to come out of it.

"So, what are you looking for?" she asked.

"I need a book on the June Rebellion in France, 1832," he said. Eponine raised her eyebrows. "It's my paper on the French Revolution," he explained.

"Vive la France," Eponine laughed as she lead him to the non-fiction section. "There's a few books on the French Rev that might have something in them you can use," she offered.

Enjolras picked up one of the paperbacks she was pointing at and leafed through it to the index. "June Rebellion's not here," he announced, starting to put it back on the shelf.

"Wait, try looking under Rebellion-comma-June," Eponine suggested. She flipped to the next page while he held the book and pointed her finger at the small print. "There it is."

"Thanks," he said, sounding surprised as he flipped to the pages it labled.

"So," Eponine sighed, leaning against the shelf, "you're doing a paper on people trying to change their government?"

Enjolras nodded, still flipping pages.

"Ironic," she remarked in a quiet voice.

Enjolras paused for a split second like he too had only just realized the correlation. "Yeah, I guess it is," he said in an equally quiet voice. She could see a smidgen of vulnerability in his eyes, which was surprising. Of all the characteristics a person could use to describe Enjolras, vulnerable would never be on the list.

But the moment broke when he started to walk to the register. "I'll take this one, then," he decided.

Cosette quickly rung him up and started to put the book in a plastic bag, but he stopped her, saying that he could carry it, and started towards the door that Eponine was leaning against.

"So, I'll see you around then," she whispered, not sure why she felt like she had to stay quiet.

"Yeah. Thanks for the book," he replied, and then pushed the door open into the afternoon air.

Eponine turned back around at Cosette's voice. "French Revolution, huh?"

Eponine gave a small laugh. "My thoughts exactly."

**Please R/R!**


	7. Chapter 7: What It's Like to Die Alive

By the time the store was closed, Eponine was falling out of her chair, she was that tired. Cosette spent most of the time in the storeroom. She had always been slightly weaker than Eponine…well, maybe weak was the wrong word. Eponine could build a barricade around her true emotions so that all people saw was a blank, unexpressive mask; it was a talent that she had perfected from years of being yelled at by her father. But Cosette's life had always been more...sheltered than hers, and she took things harder than Eponine because of that.

Eponine had put the last book in its correct place on the Young Adult shelf (she couldn't stand it when people picked up a book, glanced at it, and put it down somewhere else) when Cosette flipped the sign on the front door back around. "Hey 'Ponine, my dad and I were going to go get dinner somewhere tomorrow night after closing. Do you want to come?" Cosette called over.

Eponine brushed her choppy fringe out of her eyes. "Sounds like a father-daughter thing to me," she remarked cautiously.

Cosette got her bottle of water off of the cash register and took a swig. "He's actually the one that suggested I invite you," she shrugged.

Straightening up, Eponine pondered this. She had always wondered why Mr. Fauchelevent liked her. Her dad had fostered Cosette when they were about five, although Eponine never knew why. One day, he had simply shown up with a check, laid it down, and said that he was taking Cosette away. After a little bartering from her father, an abused Cosette had walked out the door hand in hand with him, with one backward glance at Eponine. When they had met again in high school, Mr. Fauchelevent seemed to remember her clearly, and she could sense that he knew that her dad had turned to alcohol and a belt for a whip. Even though her too-small, secondhand clothes had seemed so out of place in their mansion of a house, he had practically taken Eponine under his wing like he had adopted her as well. Four years later, and he had even offered to pay for her college education, which Eponine had firmly refused. She had gotten enough scholarships and worked enough jobs to pay for the nearby college that Cosette was also attending.

Sometimes Eponine wondered how any person had enough money to pay for two college tuitions at once, but she never dared to ask. She had always assumed it was inheritance, partnered with the fact that he was head of some big company.

"Well, then yeah, I'll go. What time?" Eponine answered.

Cosette beamed, visibly happier. "Right after closing. I can drive you over."

_No, I can walk, _she almost said, but then she relented. "Okay, thanks," she accepted.

Cosette gave her the thumbs-up sign, then waved goodbye as she went out the back.

Eponine blew out a sigh, then grabbed her bag from behind the checkout counter and went out of the store, locking the back door behind her.

The walk back to the apartment was blissfully quiet, but Eponine slowed down when she saw a dark figure leaning against the side of her building. "Shit," she whispered under her breath. _Maybe if I walk fast enough, I can just get by him without any problems…_

The figure turned at her, making his blonde hair that was certainly not Montparnasse's catch in the glow of the streetlight. "Eponine!" he called out, and she relaxed ever so slightly as she recognized Enjolras.

"Hi," she said quietly, wondering why he was being so casual.

"Did Montparnasse follow you?" he asked, looking behind her.

"What? No, why would he –" she paused. "Is this about this morning?"

"You're SURE he's not here." Enjolras asked again.

Her confusion melted away, and suddenly she was a little mad. "Why?"

"Did you run into him?"

"Oh my GOD," Eponine said under her breath, trying to walk past him into the building.

He reached for her arm, but she jolted away before he could touch her. "Eponine…"

That was it. Eponine turned to him angrily. "Do you really think that I'm so helpless that I can't handle him? I've survived just fine without your little heroic jump-in, and I can sure as hell take care of myself without you."

Now Enjolras seemed confused, which was an expression that he had never worn as long as Eponine had known him. "But this morning he-"

"I KNOW what he did this morning, I was there!" she burst out. "I can do all the damsel-in-distress saving on my own, thanks very much."

Enjolras stepped towards her. "Yeah? It didn't look like you were fighting him off."

Needles. That was exactly what it felt like. Needles stabbed into her from all directions as she looked at the ground, breath catching in her lungs. Even Enjolras seemed to know it was wrong to say, because he stepped back from where he was standing a little bit. "Eponine, I-"

"And why are you always here?" Eponine spat at the ground, fists curled. "Why don't you go hang out with your friends?"

Then she looked up. "Or are they all dead?"

Her fists fell away from her sides as she saw the expression on his face: pure pain. None of it was directed at her, though, which was what killed Eponine the most. She would rather have Enjolras screaming at her than to see him like this. It was like that one sentence had drained any fire, any argument, anything but sadness away from his face.

She racked her brain for an apology, any apology. Even a simple 'I'm sorry' might have sufficed.

But Eponine's throat seemed to close in on itself, and she walked quickly to the door of the apartments, running furiously up the staircase, except she was furious with herself. Once in the safety of her room, she threw herself onto the bed and repeatedly tore at a pillow, eventually throwing it across the room. She had to do something, anything.

Anything that could make her forget that pain he felt.

**Sorry that this took forever, but my computer was at the repair place being de-bugged and they accidentally removed Microsoft Word, so I couldn't write for a while. Please R/R!**


	8. Chapter 8: The Day That I Lost You

Cosette was on her phone when Eponine walked in from her lunch break the next day. Eponine started to ask who it was, but Cosette held up a finger and kept listening. "Uh-huh. I think twenty…no, thirty. Yes, I'm sure. Do you want me to pull up the order summary? I can…" a long pause followed, and Cosette gave Eponine an eye roll and mouthed SHIPMENT. Eponine nodded. Every time they placed a new book shipment, it seemed like there was always one company that just wanted to annoy them until a point where they didn't even want the books anymore, they just wanted to get out of the conversation.

For a split second, Eponine wondered if Cosette still wanted to be sort-of-friends with Enjolras. (She had no idea why she thought of it, but there it was.) Was she even going to tell Cosette about what she had said? Or what he had said, for that matter; she wasn't entirely at fault here. She hadn't dared to breathe a word of it to Gavroche that morning, and had answered his "Why was Enjolras outside earlier?" with a simple shrug.

From the counter, Cosette sighed with relief, and Eponine turned in time to see her slam the phone into its cradle. "I just want to check the shipping status of thirty copies of Delirum by Lauren Oliver! Is that so difficult?" She griped to nobody in particular, although a few customers turned to eye her, as if they were wondering whether or not they were supposed to answer.

The blonder swiveled on the stool towards Eponine, who held out the wrap sandwich Cosette had asked her to grab. "Thanks," Cosette said, giving Eponine the four dollars she owed her for it and taking off the plastic wrap around it. She slid out of the stool so that Eponine could take over the register, watching her carefully. "You look sad."

Eponine swung her legs to the opposite side of the stool so that she could face her. "What?"

Cosette shrugged, taking a bite of her wrap. "I don't know, you just do. Has Montparnasse-"

The brunette threw up her hands in frustration. "Why is everybody so obsessed with Montparnasse? I can handle him!"

She immediately felt bad, however, as Cosette recoiled slightly. Customers stared over again. "Sorry," Eponine sighed, resting her elbow on the edge of the register. "I-I really don't know what's wrong with me."

Her friend's face started to look a little clouded. "Is this about…the funeral…?"

It actually wasn't, but Eponine felt a jab in her stomach as she thought of her words the night before. _Or are they all dead?_ More jabs, piercing her insides until she felt like she should tell Cosette about it. After all, she was pretty much the Queen of Right-Doing, and whether Eponine could remain tentative friends with Enjolras or not, she would probably have an idea on how to apologize, at least.

But then, up went the emotion-barricade, and Eponine put on her emotionless mask. She shrugged in response to the question, and Cosette fiddled with a piece of lettuce peeking out of her wrap like she didn't really believe her. "You're sure that you want to go out tonight?" she asked in a small voice.

Eponine did feel bad, really, that their once inseparable friendship had been under so much strain that it was practically balancing on a ledge, but the mask was hard to remove once it was on, and there was a redheaded girl waiting to be checked out in front of her balancing three books. "Yeah, of course we are," she answered, then quickly added, "If it's still okay with you and your dad."

Cosette nodded, then gave a half smile as Eponine started scanning the barcodes of the books and counting change. "I'm going to ask Musichetta for a latte," she said, pointing to the coffee half of the store. "Do you want one?"

Normally Eponine didn't particularly like "fancy coffee", which basically included anything that had to use words like nonfat, no foam, or dry. (Being completely serious, she thought that all drinks are pretty much wet and didn't even know what dry meant.) But she nodded anyways, because Musichetta made a vanilla-cinnamon latte that Cosette always said there should be a rehab for, it was that amazing.

She shoved the girl's books into a bag and gave her the typical employee-to-customer "thank you for coming, have a good day," blather, not looking up or putting any enthusiasm in it. After all, how many times do you have to hear that over any given time period before it actually annoys you and makes you have the opposite of a good day? What can you actually say that will convince somebody to have a good day? _Well, you shouldn't remind them that all of their friends are dead, _Eponine thought, feeling a throbbing sensation of embarrassment and remorse in her forehead.

Cosette came back with the lattes, and to her surprise, Eponine managed to carry on semi-normal conversation without having a mental breakdown over how she can never forgive herself for making Enjolras feel that way.

Eventually the store closed, and Cosette danced away from the door after flipping the sign. "And we're doooone!" she sang, laughing at the confused face Eponine gave her. "I haven't been anywhere to take my mind off of things in forever," she explained, not breaking in her dance.

Eponine nodded, knowing exactly what things that she was talking about. "So now you're going to go out and party hard with your dad?"

Cosette rolled her eyes, but had a grin playing on her lips. "No, that would be ridiculous. I'm going to party hard with my dad AND you!"

She had to laugh at this, because if there was ever a definition of party hard, it was not Cosette Fauchelevent. This was the Cosette who refused to drink more than one glass of wine at any given time, hardly ever used swears (Eponine had heard her say "damn" once, but never again), and said 'excuse me' if somebody slammed into _her._

Her blonde waves stopped bouncing as she stopped dancing. "Okay, I'm calm. Onward!"

Eponine raised her eyebrows, but kept laughing as Cosette pulled her 'onward'.

After a quick drive into another part of the town, Cosette pulled up in front of one of the more low-key places to eat in town. Eponine had been in there once before; it was one of those one-third bar, two-thirds actual restaurant places. She could see Mr. Fauchelevent standing outside of the building, smiling at every passerby even though they didn't always smile back. He was just that kind of a person.

Cosette's low-heeled shoe clicked on a sewer grate, and the sound made him turn his head. "Cosette! Eponine! How's the store going?"

"Great," Cosette replied as he pulled her into a one-armed hug. Eponine couldn't help but smile watching them. Before she had met Cosette again in high school, she felt such a deep jealousy towards her because that mystery man had taken her away from the living hell she experienced. But seeing them again made her realize that Cosette deserved him, and he deserved her.

Cosette was asking her dad about the broken gate in his yard when they entered, so they didn't see Eponine stop immediately.

Of all people that could have been at the bar tracing his finger around the rim of a vodka tonic, it had to be Enjolras.

She tried to edge behind Cosette, which didn't really work considering that she was four inches taller than her, but it hid most of her at the very least. She snuck one glance over at him, and watched as he squeezed the lime wedge into it, stirred it, but still didn't drink it. Combing her hair in front of her face so that he couldn't recognize her, she couldn't help but think that he was assuming the same position she had seen Grantaire take up so many times, except Enjolras was evidently sober.

Cosette finally noticed Eponine shrinking behind her as her dad requested a table from the hostess. "What are you looking at?" she asked. Before Eponine could tear her eyes away, she had followed her gaze all the way over to the bar. "Oh, Enjolras is here! We should go say hi," she suggested, and tried to lead Eponine over by her wrist.

However, she was expecting it, and Eponine planted her feet firmly on the ground. "No!" she whispered a little too urgently. Cosette turned back around, confused. "I mean," Eponine tried again, "he looks…busy?"

_Way to go, 'Ponine, he's anything BUT busy, _she thought. Anybody could see that; the fearless leader had people next to him, but he clearly didn't know them. Those people were talking to other people, and he seemed to be absorbed in his own thought, staring into the bottom of his untouched glass.

Cosette raised an eyebrow. "Still, we should at least acknowledge him." She said. Eponine shook her head, flicking her glance back over at him. The bartender had leaned over to ask him a question, and he had straightened up and looked at him as if he had woken from a deep sleep and had forgotten where he was. Cosette watched her look over. "Did I miss something?"

"No," Eponine assured her. _Yes, _she thought. "It's just that he looks like he wants to be alone."

At that moment, the waiter came over and seated them at a table within plain sight of the bar, which Eponine struggled to look okay with. She tried to ignore the suspicious glances that Cosette was giving her and answered her dad's questions about Gavroche as politely as possible, but her gaze kept flitting over to the fearless leader and her heart kept hammering against her ribs in fear that he would spot her, and then she would have to say something that didn't make her seem like more of an idiot than she already felt.

Their food had come out (Eponine had ordered soup – she didn't feel as hungry anymore) when Enjolras stood up, pushed his stool in, and put money down on the counter. He paused, as if indecisive, then took a swig of the drink before turning to go. As he turned, though, he hit an empty chair with his knee and turned to put it back in the right place, then looked up in their direction.

Eponine's stomach felt like it was going to burn as he caught her gaze, and she rolled her shoulders forward a little bit. Maybe if she closed herself up enough, she would fold into oblivion and nobody would know that she had ever been there. Enjolras was perfectly still, and the people around them moved, but the words couldn't reach Eponine anymore. She swallowed, wanting to look away but not being able to.

In that moment, it didn't matter if he had provoked her, or if she had provoked him first. She didn't care if he would swear to never talk to her again, or if he would want to be best friends, or if he would have no reaction at all.

Eponine needed to say something.

But when she made a move to get up, Enjolras broke out of his statue form and went directly for the door, leaving her trying to catch her breath and wading in her own guilt in the middle of the room.

**Please R/R! If you have any suggestions, constructive criticisms, or saw an error somewhere, PLEASE don't be afraid to put them into the reviews, because I'll consider/fix it!**


	9. Chapter 9: This Feeling Never Goes Away

The register binged as Eponine popped it open. "Your total is £9.87," she murmured, shoving the 2 books into a bag and pushing it towards the middle-aged man, who searched his wallet and passed Eponine a credit card. Swiping it through, she ripped off the receipt and thrust it towards him, turning around as he walked out.

After the night before, Enjolras would randomly invade her thoughts at the strangest moments. Over the course of just one morning, Eponine had seen a small boy with blonde curls, a shirt the same color red as his jacket, and a book cover with a lime slice similar to the one that was perched on the edge of his drink, and all of them had hit her with waves of guilt so massive that she had to bite her lip to keep it from showing in her sleep-deprived eyes.

Cosette walked up behind her and glanced over her shoulder as she sorted through some papers. "I think you gave that guy the wrong receipt," she pointed out, scribbling something down on the top sheet.

Eponine picked up the smooth curl of white paper lying in front of her, and realized that it was, in fact, the customer copy and not the cashier copy. In retrospect, it wasn't a huge mistake at all, as long as they knew what he had bought and how much he had spent, but Eponine slammed it back down anyways. Cosette jumped at the sound, her pen stopping in mid-motion.

"Damn it," she spat, a lock of brown hair catching on her tongue. "I just fuck EVERYTHING up, don't I?"

Swiping the hair away from her mouth, she turned to look at Cosette, whose eyes widened. "No you don't. Why would you say that?"

Eponine bit down on her tongue to keep herself from spilling the whole story out, but sighed with relent when she looked down at the slightly rumpled receipt. "Enjolras must hate me," she admitted to nobody in particular.

Cosette pulled up the higher stool and sat on it, and Eponine had to crane her neck slightly to look at her. "What do you mean, Enjolras hates you? He's pretty quiet, I'll give you that, but I doubt he hates you."

"No," Eponine sighed, resting her hand on her forehead. "It's just…I ran into him the other night, and he was asking me all of these questions about Montparnasse, and I guess I just lost it and…" she paused, the embarrassment panging in her chest with tangible pain, "…I may have told him to go bother his friends…unless they were already…dead."

Finally telling somebody did little to ease her burden; in fact, she almost felt worse. Admitting she had been wrong to anybody was never an easy task for her.

Cosette blew a breath of air through pursed lips and looked around the store. Eponine had learned early on that her friend never said anything without thinking it through extensively, which was obviously a skill she herself was in great need of.

"Well," the blonde whispered softly, "I hate to say it, but that was a little uncalled for."

Eponine winced at the truth of it, and laid her head on the counter, feeling as if she might cry. "I KNOW," she groaned into her forearm. "I feel…ugh," she finished, not knowing the words to show exactly how she felt.

"When did you say that?" Cosette asked her quietly, rubbing a small circle on Eponine's shoulder.

The brunette lifted her head and shrugged. "Two nights ago," she answered.

Cosette looked towards the door. "You have to talk to him, Eponine."

She bolted upright. As guilt-filled as she was, the idea of ever facing Enjolras ever again made her want to crawl into a fetal position and never speak again. "I…I don't know…"

"Eponine, you HAVE to," Cosette ordered, pointing to the door and holding out her bag. She could be very assertive when she wanted to be. "Do you know where he lives? Or where he is?"

Eponine shrugged. "All I know is that he takes classes at the university, but…"

"Start there," Cosette said. Then she continued more quietly, "If he's not there, then you can just come right back and we can fix it later. But you can't hide from him forever."

"Why not?" Eponine asked stubbornly.

The petite blonde looked up at her with a serious look in her eyes. "He's the only one left."

She was right, Eponine decided as she walked/was forced out the door. Enjolras was the only surviving member of the protesters, the only one of those friends she had left. If things couldn't be right now, then they would never be anywhere close to it.

The university was down the street about two blocks, which was plenty of time to rehearse exactly what she was going to say. Apologizing was not a skill that Eponine excelled in. In fact, she believed that unless you were a character in a Nicholas Sparks novel, nobody was very good at it. But she especially would rather eat glass or shave her head than admit that she, the fearless Eponine Thenardier, was wrong about even the slightest and most unimportant thing.

She figured that she would go straight to the campus, find Enjolras, choke out a few sentences, then spin on her heel and run away before he could respond. Humiliating, yes, but she didn't trust herself to do any more than that.

_Enjolras, I'm sorry that I reminded you of how you indirectly lead all of your friends to their death. Enjolras, I'm sorry that I'm a delusional idiot that can't comprehend how there are lines people shouldn't cross. Enjolras, I'm sorry that they're all dead. Enjolras, I'm sorry that I'm so much of a twat that I can't ignore the subject that you really would prefer I don't mention. Enjolras, I'm sorry that this is the most fucked up apology you've probably ever heard, but it took me the entire walk to come up with, so if you could please just help me out and nod along, that would be great._

The gate of the campus came into view, and she realized that none of those would work. She jammed her toe into the ground in anger and tried to walk slower, but she knew very well that she wouldn't come up with anything. Maybe if she made a big enough fool out of herself, he would take pity on her and forgive her anyways.

By the time she was into the school grounds, she had come up with every possible worst case scenario that there was, and each cell in her body wanted to turn back and just tell Cosette that he wasn't there, that maybe she'd try again tomorrow. However, she knew that it would just be one more night of sleepless agony if she didn't at least try, so she followed the entrance sidewalk across the quad. Before she could get halfway across, though, she heard a "Hey!" come from behind her. Turning around, she saw a tall African-American guy that looked to be about her age in a plaid shirt coming forward.

"Sorry, I just recognized you from the bookstore downtown," he explained. "I love that place."

_Well, he seems nice enough. _"Really?" Eponine smiled, putting one hand into the pocket of her shorts.

"Do you take classes here?" he asked. He adjusted his grip on something, and Eponine saw that he was carrying a French Rev textbook. An idea dawned on her.

"No, I go somewhere else, but I am looking for someone," she carefully asked. He nodded for her to continue. "You're studying the French Rev?" she asked, pointing at his textbook.

He looked down at it, pulling it into a better view. "Yeah."

"Is there somebody in your class named Enjolras?" she asked, feeling the twine ball of nerves in her stomach tighten.

He flipped the book back over and put it in his backpack. "Yeah. Tall, blonde hair? He's been pretty off lately," he sighed. As if he had a secret, he leaned forward. "He was in that protest group from the news, like, two weeks ago. Everybody died but him. Think he's going through a pretty rough time right now."

Eponine struggled to look like this was news. "Do you know where he might be?"

He pointed to the main building. "He's normally studying in the lecture hall around this time." Another guy called, and he turned around for a split second. "Listen, I've got to go, but hey, hope you find your mate."

"He's not my – well, thanks, see you around," Eponine stuttered as he jogged in the direction of the voice.

In the entrance hall, there were little colorful brochures that had maps of the buildings in a plastic holder mounted on the wall. She took one and unfolded it, locating the lecture hall in a back corner. A few classes were going on as she walked by, but she could barely see straight as she navigated towards the room. _Maybe he won't be there. Maybe I'll just go back to the store and try again tomorrow. Maybe I can ask whatever-his-name-is to pass on the message. _

The door to the lecture hall was wide open, and Eponine looked at the vast arrangement of long desks and shiny swivel chairs as she tentatively walked in. It was a pretty large room, and half of her wanted to immediately find Enjolras amongst the seats. However, the other half wanted to run out of the building, down the sidewalk, and out the gates, never looking back once.

She took a cautious step further into the room, taking deep breaths. The air smelled like dry-erase markers, fresh paper, and pencil lead. She looked across the room from corner to corner, then again, and again…

He wasn't there.

Part of her was relieved, but the other part was catatonic with panic. Had he figured out that she was coming somehow and bolted? Was he just sick and not coming down? Was the person she had talked to wrong or lying to her? Was he at the store now, trying to find her? She swept her gaze around the room once more, then sighed and turned to walk back up the slanted ramp. Maybe Cosette could go with her next time, for moral support. She was better at this kind of thing anyways.

"Eponine?"

_Fucking shit._

She clumsily whirled around to face Enjolras, who was standing in the door to the lecture hall with his messenger bag over his shoulder and a bottle of Coca-Cola in his hand. _Late. I never considered that he might be LATE, _thought Eponine furiously. His face was a mixture of surprised and almost curious, and she tried not to think about how horribly sad he had looked the night before. Or the night before that. They both remained frozen in place until he moved to put his bag down in a chair.

"Hi," Eponine mumbled, feeling her face go scarlet.

He sat down in the chair beside his bag, his face giving away nothing about his emotions anymore. "Are you here to see someone?" he asked, not looking up from his bag as he leafed through it to pull out the same textbook the boy outside had.

_Run run run run run, _Eponine thought, but she managed to root herself to the spot. "You, actually," she finally coughed out.

Enjolras paused in mid-page-turn, but then resumed looking through the book. "Okay," he said.

Eponine waited for him to say more, but he stayed silent, so she took it as her turn to speak. "I…I wanted to…say that…wait. I wanted to say that…I…" she stammered, forgetting all of what she had come up with. Enjolras was looking at her expectantly, so she swallowed and started again, her cheeks hot. "I wanted to say that I'm…leaving. Bye."

_Wait, what? NO! _ she thought, but too late, she was propelling herself towards the door, head down and hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. Shame welled up inside of her, but she didn't stop herself. _He'll hate me forever, but that's what I deserve. Sometimes there's no second chance, and I just need to suck it up and…_

Enjolras looked up from his book. "I can tell you didn't come here just to tell me that you were leaving," he said in a low voice.

Eponine stopped and turned to face him again. She was closer now, but she still felt far away. Mustering up all of her dignity, she started talking at the speed of light. "I'm so sorry that I said what I said and it doesn't matter whether you provoked me or not and it was wrong and I feel so terrible I don't expect you to ever speak to me again and that's okay if you don't I wouldn't speak to me either I have to get back to the store."

_Well, that went smoothly, _she thought as she turned and walked out of the room, feeling tingly with embarrassment. However, she did feel like ropes binding her chest had been released. She could finally fully exhale.

"Eponine, wait," said Enjolras behind her. She stopped, but didn't turn around, so Enjolras came around to her front. She kept her eyes glued to the linoleum, examining the intricate pattern of blue speckled with white.

"You don't seriously think that it was your entire fault, do you?" he asked quietly, to not disturb the other classes.

She shrugged at the ground.

Enjolras looked at the open classroom doors and lead her back into the lecture hall. The voices of the professors drained away and were replaced by the hum of the air vent in the corner.

"Look, I probably shouldn't have interfered in the first place, and I'm sorry for that," he said, looking her right in the eye. Eponine could tell that it was sincere, but Enjolras was probably so used to making speeches that the words were easy for him. Sure enough, when she looked up, there was that glint of fire in his eye that she had seen in so many ABC meetings that showed how he believed in what he was saying.

"And you're kind of right, anyways," he shrugged, starting to look at the ground as well. "My friends, they're all…gone."

Eponine could stand taller now that she could finally stop avoiding him. "They're not all gone," she admitted.

Enjolras looked up at somber yet hopeful eyes.

"Cosette's here. A pause followed. "I'm here."

She slowly walked out of the lecture hall without waiting for a response, but somehow felt by some unspoken consensus, he agreed.

**Please R/R!**


	10. Chapter 10: It's Gonna Be Good

Eponine was breathing heavily on the way back to Café Musain, but they were breaths of relief. The world could have been crashing down around her for all she cared – she had actually managed to NOT make an idiot out of herself while spurting out sentences that somewhat resembled an apology. (Well, not much of an idiot.)

The bells on the door jingled as she strolled in triumphantly. Cosette appeared from behind a pile of boxes; the new shipment must have been delivered. "Well?" she asked, trying to lift the thick tape across the top of the boxes.

Eponine fought to keep her smug smile to a minimum. "Everything's fine," she replied jauntily.

"So you talked to him, then?"

"Mm-hm."

"And everything's…"

"Fine," Eponine finished her sentence, taking a box from the pile and using a pen to jab a hole through the tape. "Maybe better than fine."

Cosette looked over at her with a poker face. "Don't think I can't take at least some of the credit for that."

Eponine turned to her, making a fake-indignant face. "And what, pray tell, did YOU do?"

"I shoved you out that door, that's what!" Cosette laughed, finally getting the box open to reveal that month's issue of Better Homes & Gardens.

Eponine threw a balled-up piece of tape at her as she struggled to get her box open. "I could have just run into a bar, had a drink, come back, and LIED, you know! But I marched MYSELF down there and tracked him down with only my wits and help from strangers!" she said loudly, as if it were a proclamation. A woman in the Mystery/Horror section turned to look at them curiously, and Eponine waved back sarcastically, still in her state of giddy confidence.

Cosette slapped the brunette's hand down. "Don't scare away customers!" she hissed, but she was grinning too. Lifting the box, she pointed to the magazine rack. "I'm going to go put these up. Try not to burn the place down?"

"Don't worry, I forgot my matches," Eponine said, mimicking Cosette's tone. Pulling the box she had half-opened and another unopened one behind the register, she sat on the stool and worked the first box open. Inside were copies of Catching Fire and Twilight. She rolled her eyes at the latter. She would defend Gale Hawthorne until her dying breath, but had barely gotten through New Moon before she realized that it was boring her to tears.

Looking around the store, she observed that nobody seemed to be ready for checkout, so she went into the YA section and started putting the books away. She filled the space in between The Hunger Games and Mockingjay's black and blue covers with the fiery orange second book, and then scanned the alphabetical rows for Meyer, Stephanie.

"Hey!"

Eponine dropped the box in her hands with a shriek, and people all around her turned to stare. She looked behind her and saw a recoiling Cosette, cell phone in hand. "Sorryyyyy…" she whispered as everybody went back to their business. "Are the books okay?"

"It's Twilight," Eponine responded in a monotone voice, as if that constituted as the answer, "and what?"

Cosette held up a Facebook post from the restaurant they had been at last night. "Half off at the bar toniiiiight," she lilted, a smile playing on the corners of her mouth.

Eponine picked up the books she had dropped. "And?"

"And we should celebrate!"

"Celebrate what?"

Cosette swept her hair out of her eyes and started ticking off on her fingers. "Well, there's life, the store is doing well, classes for us are starting up again soon so we won't have much time, Gavroche is in one piece, I'm in one piece, you're in one piece, and I just realized that my birthday is in ex-act-ly two weeks."

"But you said it yourself, that's in two weeks," Eponine pointed out. She looked at the calendar up in the corner; it was September 3rd. Cosette's birthday was September 17th.

"But THAT, dearest Eponine Thenardier, is the future, and this is happening NOW," Cosette argued.

The brunette shushed her. Her father was very well-known here for attempted break-ins, and she didn't want it to get around that she was "the daughter of the wolf", which was what the newscasters had dubbed him. "We were just there last night!" she countered in a whisper.

"Ah-ah-ah, in the _restaurant _half. This is the _bar _half. Besides, I haven't been in the bar half since…" she fell silent, and her enthusiasm seemed to deflate. "Since Marius called me as enforcement to pry Grantaire out of there."

Eponine paused. She had remembered Cosette telling her. It was about two months before the protest, and Marius, Courfeyrac, and Grantaire had gone to the bar. Marius had called Cosette, saying that they had walked over, and no way in heaven and earth were they letting Grantaire walk back. So in swept the blonde girlfriend with a car, and the three of them had to guide the stumbling, incoherent mess into the backseat.

It had seemed so hysterical the first time Cosette had relayed it, but now it seemed to suck the light out of the room.

Cosette seemed to rouse herself from the fog, and started to help Eponine with the dropped books. "So we're going. Agreed? Agreed. I'll get the next box."

Once all of the customers had gone at closing time and everything had been safely locked up, Cosette grabbed her jacket and threw Eponine's in her direction. "And now, we drink mediocre wine for half price," the Eponine joked, catching it.

"There's not going to be any left if we don't leave now," Cosette pointed out, walking out the back door, Eponine quickly following behind.

The place was crowded, as expected, when they walked in, so instead of fighting for a chair, Eponine opted to lean against the wall in the corner. While Cosette went to place their orders, Eponine got a good look around. There were a lot of people her age, probably from the university she had stepped into earlier. Most of the girls had on flouncy little dresses and were clinging to the arms of tipsy guys. She couldn't help but laugh at their idiocy as the boys repeatedly shrugged off their grasps, only to find the masses of manicured fingernails clenching down again.

Soon enough, she caught Cosette's blonde waves bobbing above the crowd as she weaved her way in and out of people to reach Eponine and hand one of two piña coladas, taking a sip out of the second one. "I don't see anybody, do you?" she asked above the noise.

Eponine had to yell back to her. "No, not from here."

She scanned the place again and realized a group of people leaving at the end of the long row of stools and pointed it out to Cosette. She nodded, and they both went over to the stools and claimed them before anybody else realized that they were open.

Cosette immediately struck up a conversation with the bartender. Having known her for a years, Eponine knew that guys often seemed to purposely seek her out in a crowd like she had some magnetic aura. It didn't necessarily bother her – in fact, the only time it did was the first ABC meeting. Everybody had wanted to confirm that "Marius's girlfriend" was, in fact, real and not a figment of his imagination. While everybody flocked to her and questioned if she was insane or blind, and if she wasn't then why was she dating Marius? Only Eponine and Grantaire had hung back, the latter seemingly uninterested. And maybe she was looking for any attention, or maybe not, but she grabbed the wine out of his hands and took a long drink from the bottle. He watched her do so, and nodded in approval when she held it back out to him. For the rest of the meetings to come, they had somehow mutually but silently agreed that they were now friends.

There are some experiences that you can't share without becoming friends, and Eponine concluded that downing two glasses worth of wine that's not yours in one shot was one of them.

However now, there was no bottle to steal from; only Cosette's lonely drink, forgotten near her elbow as she laughed at something the bartender had said.

"Okay, NOW you're following me," a voice said behind Eponine.

She defensively swiveled on her chair, but relaxed when she saw that it was the boy from the campus that had directed her to Enjolras. "What, you don't think I have better people to follow?" she said coyly. _Cosette's off flirting or whatever, I might as well follow suit, _she thought.

"No I don't," he continued, "because so far, I only know of you following Enjolras, and that's not many options. Speaking of which, you find him alright?"

"Oh, yeah, he was in the room you mentioned," she said gratefully. "Thanks…" she gestured to show that she didn't know his name.

"Charles Mabeuf," he filled in. Then he turned to look over her shoulder. "Ah, and speak of the devil."

"What?" she asked, turning to look in his direction and crashing straight into a taller, blonde guy who upon closer inspection, proved to be Enjolras.

"Oh, hi," she stuttered, wiping a little spilled drink off of her arm. He nodded to her and took his place beside Charles, back to his usual aloof, stone-cold personality, as she could see.

Charles, however, was animated as always. Or possibly a little drunk. He gestured at his friend with the glass and said, "Had to FORCE HIM out of the dorm tonight, you know." Cosette reappeared at Eponine's side as they watched him stumble on. "The man wanted to stay in and finish his paper due in two weeks!"

Enjolras tensed visibly. "Charles, quiet."

Maybe she was used to the members of the ABC obeying every order their leader gave, but Eponine was surprised when Charles advanced with the story anyways. "It's on the French Rev, and he keeps scrapping his work because nothing is ever good enough." He then turned towards the topic of conversation. "Why can't you just settle for a B?"

"Why can't you just stop pestering me," Enjolras came back, but it was in no way a question.

"French Rev?" Cosette piped up. She indicated Eponine with her glass. "Eponine, didn't you get an A on that test during the final semester?"

She looked down into her drink, hesitant about where her friend was going with that information. "Um, maybe. Why?"

Cosette turned back to face Enjolras. "Let Eponine help you!" she volunteered, at which Eponine looked up in shock. "Well, you got an A, right?"

"Y-yes, but…"

"So Enjolras can come to the store like, every three days for the next two weeks or so, and you guys can work on it!" Cosette finished, looking quite proud of herself.

Charles jumped directly on board. "Anything to pry him out of his room," he agreed.

Well, the ball was already rolling now, so Eponine relented and looked up at Enjolras. "If you want to, I guess."

He looked from Charles to Cosette and back to Eponine before sighing and shrugging. "I'll come tomorrow."

"Yes!" Charles shouted, drawing a little attention from their bar stool neighbors. Enjolras reached over and set his friend's glass down on the counter after wrenching it from his hand.

"Well, in that case, we'd better actually get some sleep. Come on, Eponine, Bye Enjolras, and nice meeting you…" Cosette trailed off.

"Charles Mabeuf," he filled in.

"Right." They gave half-waves as they deposited their glasses on the counter and went out the door, where Eponine finally exhaled fully.

"What the hell was that?" she exclaimed, but Cosette just innocently glanced at her. "If he wanted my help, couldn't he have asked?"

Her friend shrugged. "He didn't know you got an A. Plus, he's not that talkative, so he may not have asked."

"It's still not really our business!"

"Oh please," Cosette laughed nonchalantly, searching her bag for her keys. "What's the worst thing that could happen? Oh, and do you want a ride home?"

"I'll walk, thanks," she spat, slightly exasperated, and began to storm away.

"You might thank me one day!" Cosette yelled back to her.

Infuriated and having no idea why, Eponine turned around and yelled back, "Well, one day is NOT today!"

**Sorry that this is a filler chapter…Please R/R!**


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